


A Long Time Gone

by assetbucky



Series: How Far We've Come [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Trans Pidge | Katie Holt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 07:50:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12361011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assetbucky/pseuds/assetbucky
Summary: Pidge visits her mom, Hunk visits his family, and Shiro visits some old friends.You can find me at transmarmora on tumblr!





	1. Chapter 1

They were going back to Earth. Two weeks ago, Keith had freaked out, and they all decided that everyone needed a break. Since everything was still clear, they got to visit their families.

Pidge landed her lion in a forest nearby. It wasn’t foolproof, but she’d also created a remotely controlled cloaking device so the lion wouldn’t be visible to others while she was visiting her mother. Her mother, who probably thought her whole family was dead.

She opened the front door, immediately seeing her mother sitting in the main room, surrounded by screens and sensors. _It must be a Holt thing, then._ She took a few steps into the room. “Mom?”

Her mother sat up straighter, then froze for a moment before turning around. “Katie…”

She ran and hugged her mother, the only family she could locate right now. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

“Where did you go? It’s been two years, Katie. They said you _died_.”

“I’m not dead. And neither is Matt. I… I’ve been trying to track him down. Look at this.”

She brought up the security footage. “Look, they used nano-thermite titanium-boron to break out. There’s only one guy in the section of the galaxy who sells it. I’m gonna set up a deal with him to try to get names for everyone in the video. I’m gonna find him.”

Her mother was crying, staring at Matt on the screen. She’d given up on Matt and Sam long ago. Which was why she couldn’t accept that Katie was gone too.

“He’s okay…” She pulled her daughter into a tight hug. “Katie, you can’t just run off like that.”

“It wasn’t exactly my choice. I mean, technically it kinda was, but not really. I’m not the one who flew the blue lion and decided to follow what a robot told us to do. That was Lance. And Keith was the one who gave us a starting point to find the lion, even though we didn’t know that’s what we were looking for. And Hunk figured out the Fraunhofer line. Shiro technically started all of it, him crashing was what made us all go down there in the first place.”

She explained what had happened. It took extra time given how often she had to go back and explain something. After all, she’d been using these terms for two years now. She’d nearly forgotten that her mother wouldn’t know them.

“So you’re defending the universe? And you can’t just… leave and have someone else do it?”

“No. The lions chose us. It has to be us. And anyway, there’s no way I’m gonna find Matt from here. I have to go find him. Then we’ll find Dad.”

They spent the next few weeks together. She and her mother went out and got her some more dresses. After all, it had been 3 years since she’d worn any of her old ones, none of them were going to fit.

A week in, she’d talked to most of the neighborhood. Any time she stepped outside, there was another person asking questions. She couldn’t tell them all the truth. For almost everyone, she said that she didn’t really remember much, and that the other students who were declared dead were also alright.

When Matt’s best friend asked, she couldn’t lie to him.

“Katie, where were you? You left to find out what happened to Matt and then the garrison said you were dead…”

“You gotta swear not to tell people, I don’t wanna freak everyone out.”

Austin nodded, looking suspicious.

“I’ve been out in space. Past Kerberos. Way past Kerberos.”

She told the story again - Shiro crashing, finding Blue, being brought to the castle, Allura and Coran, finding the rest of the lions, forming Voltron, Zarkon, Lotor, all of it. Then she pulled up her screen again. “And you’re gonna want to see this. These people used this super rare, expensive explosive to break out of a Galra prison. Totally trackable, _if_ the guy thinks you’re gonna buy from him. Which means I’m gonna find Matt.”

Austin stared at the screen, Matt’s face clearly displayed on the footage. “He’s alive… He’s… he’s okay?”

“As far as I know, yeah. I should be able to find him soon.”

By the time she received the signal that they had to come back, it felt like leaving a normal life. She’d fallen into a routine, met with a few of the neighborhood kids, and learned that her mother had been tracking signals, and was actually surprisingly close to finding them when she showed up.

“Sweetie, are you sure you have to go back?”

“Mom, Lotor is trying to take over the universe. We cleared this quadrant, but unless we keep fighting him he’s going to take it over again. We have to actually defeat him, not just keep him from Earth.”

“But they could find someone else. You can’t be the _only_ being who can pilot the lion… It isn’t locked to one person, just a compatible person, right? There has to be someone else.”

“I’m probably not the only one, but I’m the only one we know. For all we know, the nearest one is across the universe where we can’t get to them. And anyway, I _have_ the green lion. I have to go. I’ll come back. And I’m gonna bring Matt with me. I promise.”

Before her mother had a chance to object again, Pidge walked out the front door and jogged out to the woods. Inside the lion, she changed into her armor, stuffing the dress she’d been wearing into her bag. She sent her mother one more text before she left.

_I’ll find him, mom, we’re both coming home. promise. -Pidge_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hunk's visit! His moms and sister, his real name, because we all know these lovely women didn't name their son "Hunk"

Hunk didn’t know what to expect. He checked on his way into town - it had been almost exactly two years since they disappeared. His sister, who had been 16 at the time, was an adult now. They’d been talking about moving when he left, and if they had he had no way to find them. As he walked up, he was relieved to see every sign pointing to his family still living there. He knocked on the door, bouncing anxiously on his toes.

Naomi opened the door and stared for a moment, then pulled him inside and hugged him. “ _Mom_!” She didn’t know where either of them was in the house, but it didn’t matter.

“ _Which one_?”

Hunk laughed a little, the common occurrence making everything feel almost normal. “ _Both of you._ ”

Hearing his voice, Sina and Natia came running.  
“Elisara?” It had been years since he'd been called that. Everyone at the garrison butchered it, and everyone thought it was a girls name.

//

_“Is Eli-Sara here? Has anyone seen her?”_

_He walked in just in time to hear it. It was… disappointing to say the least. “I'm here.” He went to an empty seat in the back of the class. The guy next to him leaned over._

_“You might want to change that if you want to be taken seriously. I changed mine years ago.”_

_“Yeah, but what would I change it to?”_

_“Something that fits. Hunk.” The guy had a smile on his face, clearly flirting._

_Over the next weeks, he tried finding a new name, and Lance kept calling him Hunk. It was better than being called Sara, the way most people were. He decided it was better than nothing._

_“You went there. You actually went there. I mean, at least I chose a real name.”_

_“Yeah well I was rushed, Lance.”_

_“Dude, Eli. Eli is a name.”_

_“Only certain people get to call me Eli. And you didn’t just shorten your name. Wait… did you?”_

_“No. My first name is Leonys. But y’know, nobody was gonna take Leonys Alvarez Novoa seriously, so I changed it before applying to the garrison.”_

_“Yeah, well Leo is a name, could’ve just gone with that.”_

_“Point taken. Well, Hunk, we should probably get going to class.”_

//

“I’m here. I’m… I’m so sorry, mom. I swear I’ll explain everything.”

“They said you were dead, Elisara. Where you were you?”

“Well, it’s a long story… I was in space. Really far out. I’m… I’m a part of this team that defends the universe. We had to… to drive these alien guys out of the area to keep people safe. I pilot this huge robot lion, and it’s part of an even bigger robot.”

He went on explaining, Sina, Natia, and Naomi doing their best to follow the story. “Are… are you staying now?”

“Well… I’m staying as long as I can. We cleared this quadrant, but we have to get the Galra completely out of power. We have to take down Lotor, Zarkon, and Haggar before we even might be able to stop. It should be awhile before I get called back though.”

And clearly he was right. It had been 3 days and he’d run out of things to do in the house. Which was when Naomi told him that the next day was the day exactly they’d found out he had ‘died’, and Mika coming over to mourn with the rest of them. They hadn’t told them yet, figuring that the surprise would be even better.

Mika showed up the next morning. He’d been Elisara’s best friend for years, and they dated for a year before he left for the garrison. Sina answered the door for him, practically running to bring him inside. Elisara was sitting on the couch, smiling and waving a little at Mika.

“Hey…”

“Eli...Eli you’re…”

“Yeah, I’m alive. I can explain everything.”

For the next two weeks, Mika stayed with them. When Hunk was called back, Mika initially refused to let go. 

“I swear, I’ll come back. I came back this time.”

“Eli, please… you were gone for two years…”

“I know. I’ll try to get back as soon as I can, but they need me. And the Galra came in as close as Kerberos. If we hadn’t found the blue lion and gone out there, who knows how close to Earth they would’ve come. They might’ve invaded _here_. And they’ve been looking for the lions, so now that four of them are on Earth, we already put everyone in danger by just being here. I have to leave.”


	3. Chapter 3

Shiro didn’t have any family to visit, but he sure as hell had friends. He went to the home of a friend who had graduated with him from the garrison and knocked on the door. He knew that if he was working for the garrison, Ali would likely have to turn him in. But he was pretty damn sure he wasn’t. He opened the door and stared up at him.

“...Shiro?”

“Ali… hey…” He smiled a little, jerking back from the force of Ali running into him as he hugged him. “Don’t… please don’t tell the garrison I’m here. I can’t stay and if they know I’m here they won’t let me leave again.”

“I won’t. But you have to tell me where you have been. It’s been three years…”

“I know. The first year is… fuzzy. The Kerberos mission didn’t fail. We were taken by aliens. The Galra, specifically. Sam was taken to a work camp, I don’t know if he’s okay. Matt and I were put into entertainment combat, but I… I made sure Matt never had to fight. I broke out and stole one of their ships, came back to Earth. The garrison was trying to sedate me. Thought I was crazy. But Lance and Keith broke me out with the help of Hunk and Pidge, and… well, we ended up back in space. Further out than Kerberos.”

He explained the rest of what had happened, Ali staring at him the whole time. “We’re going to find Matt. Pidge is working on it, she won’t give up. She’s… very very stubborn when it comes to finding her brother. We know Matt is alive, or was recently. We’re trying to find him, then we’ll work on finding Sam.”

They spent the next two weeks together, Ali asking questions near constantly and Shiro answering whatever he could.

“So… wh-what’s with your arm?”

“I don’t remember what happened. But the Galra liked the way I fought, so I guess they decided to make sure I could keep fighting. It’s… it’s a weapon too, I guess.”

Ali leaned against him and reached out, brushing his fingers against his hand. “Can you feel with it?”

Shiro nodded. “Yeah. It… feels a bit different, but I can definitely feel.” He held Ali’s hand, wrapping his other arm around him. “I’m so sorry I disappeared…”

“Please don’t go again.” Ali had fallen apart when Shiro disappeared. He was going to work at the garrison, but he couldn’t focus on the work. For nearly two months, he barely left his house. “Don’t go…”

“I’ll have to. But I swear I’ll come back again. I promise.” They fell asleep together on the couch, Ali curled up against Shiro's side.

A week later, Shiro got called back. As he was about to walk out the door, Ali stopped him for a moment. He stopped and hugged him, just for a moment, before leaning up and kissing him.

Shiro froze, looking down slightly to him. “I- I’m sorry, Ali. I have to do this. I’ll be back.” And with that, he turned and left.


End file.
